While state of the art data processing techniques readily lend themselves to the development of specialized equipments for emulating and simulating many conditions and environments, the same has not successfully been employed in the development of sophisticated gaming equipment due to the fact that such gaming equipment must be based at a threshhold level upon the random occurrence of specified fortuitous events. Thus, whenever a gaming machine is to emulate a game of chance, the outcome of each game, the probability of success or failure which is associated with wagers to be accepted, the reliability of the device when seen from the standpoint of the casino owner or the like, as well as the fairness of the equipment as viewed by the player, all must be based upon the gaming equipment's ability to reliably and repetitively select the happening of a random occurrence in a truly random fashion. When data processing equipment or the like is involved, this ability will invariably be tied to the equipment's accessability to a large number of truly random numbers.
The provision of random numbers to a computer has typically been achieved through the storage of large tables of random numbers or by the provision of a random generator employing either hardware or pseudo-random number generation techniques. However, each of these techniques exhibits substantial drawbacks when applied to the development of gaming equipment or the like and frequently allow such equipment to be beaten by the skilled mathematician or the like. Thus, for instance, the storage of large random number tables is generally undesirable as the same requires too much memory and unless extremely large tables are stored, the equipment relying upon these tables will exhibit a certain repeatability. Similarly, hardware random number generators frequently exhibit a certain bias which over a period may be observed and employed to render the gaming equipment unreliable.
Additionally, with typical forms of hardware random number generators, the spectrum of random numbers which may be generated is somewhat limited. Finally, pseudo-random number generation techniques such as are usually employed in computers and the like, require that a seed number be employed, and it is to this seed number that the various manipulations associated with a given pseudo-random number generator, such as a mid-square generator, a congruential generator, or a shift register generator are applied. However, if the seed number becomes known or is discovered and the method of pseudo-random number generation is detectable, a gaming machine based upon these techniques can be beaten.
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide an improved random number generator.
It is a further object of the invention to provide improved gaming equipment or the like employing such improved random number generator in determining the occurrence of fortuitous events upon which wagers may be made.
It is another object of this invention to provide an improved random number generator whose operation is highly uniform so that, over an interval of time, the same will generate a sequence of random numbers that exhibit no bias.
It is a further object of this invention to provide improved gaming equipment which employs random numbers generated in a uniform manner to ascertain the occurrence of a fortuitous event, and in addition thereto, to display and operate upon the use of one of a plurality of probability tables associated with the occurrence of that event which are also selected as a function of random numbers provided.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an improved random generator which is seedless.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide gaming apparatus relying upon the provision thereto of random numbers which closely simulate and select for a prospective user, wagering conditions which closely approximate those encountered by an actual participant of the game being emulated.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an improved random number generator having sufficient internal checks and balances to determine a failure condition and rapidly indicate the same prior to substantial reliance on any sequence of random numbers which may be provided during the occurrence of such failure condition.
It is another object of this invention to provide improved gaming apparatus which initiates an automatic shutdown condition upon a determination that the sequence of random numbers being provided thereto has become unreliable or that otherwise a failure within such system has occurred.
It is an additional object of this invention to provide an improved random number generator having a mode of generating random numbers which is sufficiently complex to inhibit tampering or the like.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide improved gaming equipment for the purpose of simulating races and accepting wages thereon, which game equipment acts in response to the provision of random numbers to select winning entries in races to be displayed and subsequently acts to display an appropriate race based on the winning entry selected.
It is an additional object of this invention to provide an improved random number generator exhibiting unpredictable start up characteristics based upon the receipt of white noise.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide improved gaming equipment which is highly sophisticated and exhibits high reliability in both modes of operation and in regard to the probability associated with various wagers displayed to a prospective user thereof.
It is an additional object of this invention to provide gaming equipment employing digital processing techniques for closely simulating the sights, sounds and other conditions which a prospective player might reasonably expect to encounter at a racetrack.
Various other objects and advantages of the present invention will become clear from the following description of several exemplary embodiments thereof, and the novel features will be particularly pointed out in connection with the appended claims.